De­liv­ery time re­duced for over­seas cus­tomers

Over­seas con­sumers who buy made-in-China prod­ucts on­line will soon see the par­cel de­liv­ery time re­duced by two-thirds to three to five days, as a lo­cal in­sur­ance com­pany part­nered with eBay Inc to help speed up the de­vel­op­ment of cross-bor­der e-com­merce.

Cur­rently, it takes eight to 15 days be­fore for­eign buy­ers to get what they want af­ter plac­ing an or­der on­line, and con­sumers only have lim­ited op­tions on­line, mostly light­weight items, to keep lo­gis­tics costs un­der con­trol.

But now China Ex­port & Credit In­sur­ance Corp, a ma­jor Chi­nese in­sur­ance firm, also known as SINOSURE, aims to change all that by part­ner­ing with eBay and three trade ser­vice firms in Tian­jin.

SINOSURE’s Tian­jin branch will of­fer credit in­sur­ance to Chi­nese sell­ers on eBay, to help them build over­seas ware­houses so they can of­fer for­eign con­sumers a bet­ter shop­ping ex­pe­ri­ence.

“Build­ing ware­houses in for­eign coun­tries will en­able Chi­nese firms to sell over­seas buy­ers items that are im­pos­si­ble to be trans­ported cur­rently, such as auto parts, fur­ni­ture and gar­den­ing,” said Lin Yizhang, CEO China.

“It will also help Chi­nese prod­ucts reach more coun­tries in far shorter time,” he added.

“In the fu­ture, buy­ing over­seas prod­ucts on­line will be as fast and con­ve­nient as shop­ping at nearby stores.”

Three trade ser­vice com­pa­nies in Tian­jin will also help eBay sell­ers in lo­gis­tics, fundrais­ing, tax re­funds and other ar­eas.

Wang Xiaowei, pres­i­dent of Power in Cloud (Tian­jin) E-com­merce Co Ltd, a Tian­jin­based man­u­fac­turer of bi­cy­cles, said it was ex­pen­sive to build ware­houses in for­eign coun­tries.

“It costs about $6 per square me­ter to rent ware­houses in theUnited States. The let­ter of of eBay Greater guar­an­tee from SINOSURE, a big State-owned firm, helped us ap­ply for loans from banks,” Wang said.

Wang’s firm was se­lected as a test case to re­ceive the new ser­vices from SINOSURE in 2014. Since then, the com­pany has set up ware­houses in the US, the United King­dom and Bel­gium, with a to­tal area of nearly 50,000 sq m.

“Cur­rently, Amer­i­can con­sumers who buy our bi­cy­cles on eBay can re­ceive their or­ders in three to five days,” he said, adding the com­pany saw ten­fold in­crease in cross-bor­der on­line trans­ac­tions in 2015.

Wei Shaomin, gen­eral man­ager of SINOSURE’s Tian­jin branch, said Chi­nese small and medium-sized en­ter­prises will greatly ben­e­fit from the part­ner­ship.

Tak­ing tax re­funds as an ex­am­ple, trade ser­vice firms can now help shorten the whole process to two to three days which would oth­er­wise take six months.

“The deal with eBay and lo­cal trade ser­vice firms will help gen­er­ate $1 bil­lion in ex­tra ex­ports of goods in Tian­jin,” Wei said.

It will also help Chi­nese prod­ucts reach more coun­tries in far shorter time.”

Con­tact the writ­ers at masi@chi­nadaily.com.cn and zhang­min@ chi­nadaily.com.cn